Day 61 - The Taj Mahal

We were told that the Taj Mahal really does live up to the hype, and that earlier is better to avoid the crowds. That meant a 5:30am alarm for a 5:45am meeting of our guide at the hotel 🤢. Despite our yawning it was indeed very impressive and the fact that they managed that level of symmetry over that distance with everything perfectly lined up using exclusively hand tools is insane.

The guide gave us lots of interesting background and even grabbed us a quick ride on electric golf buggy back to the hotel! For example, it cost 45 million rupees at the time and was in part done to provide employment like big infrastructure projects. A shanty town of 20,000 sprung up for the 22 year build.

Suitably awed it was back to the hotel for well deserved (enormous) breakfast and naps! Then Emma and Jeremy did a cooking class with the hosts while I sat down to do life admin. Boring, but very necessary!

The Cooking Class - Emma

First a big thanks to Pooja for putting on a last minute class, keen as beans, and wanting to show us anything we wanted to make!

Our current curry faves are Malai Kofta, and Palak Paneer, so we asked if we could make them, Pooja: "Absolutely! And a veg dish, maybe Okra? And do you like paratha?". Ok, menu set!

Pooja stepped us through the koftas (grated potato and paneer, rolled and deep fried). Then truckloads of ghee, an entire garlic, spices and tomatoes for the kofta sauce. Followed by truckloads of canola oil, half a garlic and spices and spinach for the palak sauce. Then another truckload of mustard oil (didn't even know that was a thing!) for the okra. One main take away... The oil choice is important, and theres a lot of it! (Probably could have guessed that, when the smallest canola oil you seem to be able to buy in supermarkets is 20L).

Class was great though, got 2 awesome recipes, and amazing that Pooja does not have a single chopping board or big knife in her kitchen. All her chopping is done against her thumb (very calloused) with one of two tiny yellow knives 🤯. She explained that someone once gave her a chopping board, it got put in the cupboard, then moved further back in the cupboard, then right to the back, until her daughter asked one day of she could have it....to which Pooja happily gave it away without regret. "Too slow and takes up too much space on the bench" 🤣

We had a bit of an oopsie moment after we finished eating their creations when it was a) later than planned and b) we couldn't find any suitable accommodation in range. Eventually we did find something 40-odd kilometers away, although it was a bit pricey. Nevermind, at least we can easily make that before it's dark...or so we thought!

First off the road ended in a river. There was a big gathering of people next to piles and piles of rubbish and lots of vehicles so we thought it might be a ferry of some kind. However, on approach we were pointed to the big motorway bridge you could just make out in the smog, see the nearly complete square in the Strava track! Getting on to the motorway involved taking directions from some kids who chased us madly on their beaten up bikes then showed us the best path to use up the embankment and across the guard rail to "merge" onto the motorway. Getting off was much the same except in reverse and with a shepard as a guide! This community really needs a bridge.

Phaff done we got to pedalling...and hit immediately hit sand! Quite a lot of it over quite a long way. Bother. It was slow hard going, especially as Jeremy had missed the Kazakhstan sand training camp and we were chased and harressed by a group of teenagers and their 20 cattle which constantly got in the way having been made to run to catch up with us...

When we finally reached solid tarmac it was dark and extremely smoggy and 24km of main road, none of which was pleasant but we got through and had quite the surprise waiting because not only was the hotel very fancy, but it was also hosting a massive wedding with 1.5k guests! Although they can do upwards of 2.5k!? It didn't start until 10:30pm so we just saw an extremly well decorated garden and pavillion on arrival and were met by about 20 staff. They ranged from "you are in the wrong place" to "these are guests not capable of carrying even their own helmets we shall do it for them".

We parked the bikes and checked in watched by I kid you not, 8 staff. The restaurant was the same - I counted 7 wait staff for two in use tables, so at any one time you have 3 to 4 people just standing there and watching you which is...intense. Food was good though and we had salad/soup - still full from the bottomless feedings we'd had at the guesthouse! The level of English was generally low but never clarified or admitted which made simple tasks like getting the WiFi password or a third towel for the room real missions, despite 4 people trying!

The party is just getting started at half past midnight and the thumping base has just cut in so it won't be the quiet night rest from the day we were hoping for!

Food spend today: 37.80 euros